“Eve Was Star”, by Andre Brassil. A.K.A “A freestyle based upon King’s work”

I am a huge fan of Stephen King. Everything with his name on it got my attention. And Dollar Babies became a passion, now more than ever since I got access to these rare short movies so I can write reviews about them or screen them at my Dollar Baby Film Fest. I have my own Dollar Baby and I also wrote a second one that never got the chance to come to life. So I kind of understand Dollar Baby filmmakers in their need to not only to make art but also to adapt their favorite author into a short movie. I get that, but what I don’t get is when I see talented young filmmakers doing Dollar Babies but not really adapting the original source. I will explain.

“Eve Was Star” is a good short movie. Period. There are so many good things about this short movie that makes it a good short movie by itself, without the need to write in the credits that famous phrase “Based upon a short story by Stephen King”. I am saying this with all due respect, hoping that the cast and crew does not get offended by my words, but, man, the movie should not have this “stigma” attached to it because it really does not look like a based upon short movie. Why? I will explain.

Since I started to watch a lot of Dollar Babies I got the chance to watch a variety of movies: good movies, really good movies, awesome movies, odd movies and some bad movies. And for me what makes a short movie an awesome or a really bad Dollar Baby is not related with how faithful or not to original short tale they are, it is quite the opposite actually: I love when filmmakers change a few things from the original short story, because it is when they make the story become their movie and not only a Stephen King movie.

For me it looks even more real when the filmmaker takes something of his life’s experience and puts it into the movie, using his own background in a good story and makes something amazing, sometimes even better then the original short story. But what most of the Dollar Babies have in commun is that they do make use of the original source. Damm, they paid the one dollar, they put more money from their pocket to make a movie (only someone who does this at least once in his life knows how expensive it is to make a movie, even the independent ones) and they will never be able to put the movie on-line or make money from it, so they usually make sure that Stephen King’s name is on their project for a reason. The Dollar Baby filmmakers usually use the original source as a guide. They do that because they trust the original source is a successful story and also they want to please King’s fans. And that is not what Andre Brassil did in his movie.

Before I start a review I usually read the original story and anything from the movie that we have in SKSM, like interviews and essays. In this case we only have one interview for this short movie, so read it and also focus on the original tale and in the movie itself. What I noticed while I was watching is that Brassil did use a few things from King’s short story, I did recognize a bunch of lines very well planned in the movie and some other aspects from the story too, but the way the screenplay was written is like it was something fully new. A new story with some easter eggs from the original short tale and King’s universe.

And please, don’t get me wrong, I am not criticizing or saying that it is a bad movie or bad adaptation (believe me, I know bad adaptations), actually it’s quite the opposite. What I am trying to say is that the movie has many qualities, and if I had the chance to talk to Andre Brassil before he sent the one dollar bill to King, I would say to him “dude, don’t do it! Change some things, some lines and make the movie, but do not write ‘based upon a short story by Stephen King’. Why? Because you won’t be able to show the world the movie/your talent the way you deserve to show. You will be stuck to the rules of the Dollar Baby Deal and your movie will only be known at some movie festivals. You won’t have an open YouTube link, your movie will never broadcast on TV…”

Now, thinking about it, this makes me sad. Because we, filmmakers, when we make a short movie we want it to be watched! We want people to know our work and also hear from them if they like it or not. When we chose to make a Dollar Baby we did know that people would not have access to it the way we would like to, but we used to do that for a lot of reasons, one of them was because we did not have a good idea for our first profissional short movie. So we at least had a great story to start our project.

But, Andre Brassil choosed a different path. Ok, I respect that. I don’t understand, but I respect it.

That being said, well, Andre let me at least give you the feedback you deserve: I liked your movie!

“Eve Was Star” begins with a curious scene: an acting class. And in these scenes Brassil uses metalanguage in a cool way to introduce the main character played by Andrew Worley. Also in these scenes, the acting classes, Andrew has a monologue in which Brassil uses King’s words in such a clever way so that we not only see Worley’s talent as an actor, but we also see an actor playing an actor who through his monologue exercise is showing us how he really feels inside. That was a great scene. Well done Brassil.

Another cool scene (at least for me as a Brazilian) was that scene where Worley is talking to the girl at the party, when they kiss. I liked this scene because the Brazilian flag hanging on the wall really made me smile. By reading Brassil’s interview here at SKSM I found out that Andre was born in Brazil and he is half brazilian. That also made me smile. It is not clear at the interview if Brassil is his real name or an alias as an artist, but if I could bet I would bet the second option. Andre is a common name here in Brazil. Probably the Brazilian flag in that scene was intentional and I bet that every single Brazilian that has the chance to watch your movie will also smile like me. Besides that, the art production at this scene and the others at the party were really great too, the costumes specifically. The art production in those scenes carry so many symbols and subliminal messages, at least it was for me.

In the same way, for me the final scene was also open to interpretation and in this case reminded me a little of what King wrote in the original story. Although both products are completely different, they both share this thing: the reader and the audience both receive a final where they can draw their own conclusions about what really happened during the whole movie and also what will happen to the main character. And, in my opinion, these are the best kind of closure for some movies such as “Eve Was Star”. So thank you for that, Andre. Obrigado, amigo.

Another scene that I really liked and once again reminded me of Brazilian culture was almost at the end when black and white becomes an all colored scene, an all red colored scene.

Here in Brazil we had this director, the deceased José Mojica Marins, A.K.A Coffin Joe. He directed a lot of horror movies in the 60s and became really famous here and abroad for this character that he created called Coffin Joe. “Eve was star” reminded me one of Joe’s movie, his second one called “This night I’ll possess your corpse“, because Joe’s movies were Black and white; Eve Was Star” also has a lot of scenes in black in white, but one thing called my attention in “Eve Was Star” and made me think about this brazilian movie and that is this transition from black and white to color imagem.

In the Brazilian movie we see almost the entire movie in black and white, but when the main character literally goes to Hell, the image becomes colored. And this transition really surprises the audience the same way “The wizard of Oz” also does it when Dorothy goes to Oz . In “Eve Was Star” Andre Brassil really nailed this scene, no matter if it was an homage or not to “The Wizard of Oz” or to the brazilian director. But I like to think that it was for the Brazilian director, maybe another brazilian flag in the movie? LoL.

Thank you Brassil, it is such a good short movie, really fun to watch. I wish more people could have the chance to watch it.

The Dollar Baby’s grade? Well, as a Dollar Baby (a short movie based upon a story by Stephen King) we from SKSM give the short movie 2 fingers from the dead guy’s hand. But, as a short movie that only signs to Stephen King fans with easter eggs, we from SKSM give the short movie 5 fingers from the dead guy’s hand!

That is it for today, folks. See you next time.

Leonardo Granado.